Election 2020
Ranked Choice Voting
By: Anjali Akula, Jonathan Cervas, Elsie Goren
On November 3, voters in Maine will choose their next U.S. senator in a way that no former senator has been chosen before — under a ranked-choice voting system (RCV). Maine’s government adopted this system by ballot initiative in 2016, with elections to the House of Representatives in 2018 occurring under this new method. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, it may seem complicated. However, ranked-choice voting is actually an intuitive way to cast your ballot that gives each voter increased influence. …
Politics
Unlikely unless the race tightens over the last few months
Jonathan Cervas, Carnegie Mellon University
Bernard Grofman, Distinguished Professor Political Science, University of California, Irvine
There is a great deal being written about the likelihood that Donald Trump will be re-elected President in November. Much of that discussion focuses on the idea of fundamentals (e.g., economic conditions) and on the predictive power of the ever-changing polls, but there is also work that focuses the peculiarities of the Electoral College that allow an Electoral College (EC) inversion, where the winner of the popular vote loses the election. That has happened four times in our nation’s history, with the most recent occurrence…
Jonathan Cervas
Carnegie Mellon University | Institute for Politics and Strategy | Postdoctoral Fellow
